Archives for March 2016

Yes, it may seem early, but organization is key to success with Chambers.

Legal directories management is tough, and even the best-oiled team will hit a bump in the road – but the majority of problems can be prevented with advance planning.

Prepare a master organizational table

Using Word or Excel, prepare a directories organization chart as early as possible.

Draw up a list of all the sections in every state (and nationally) where your firm has an office.

At a minimum, your table should include:

The name of the state (or national)
The practice/industry section (what the directories call it, not your firm)
The submission deadline
Whether you submitted for that section last year – yes/no
Whether your firm was ranked in that section – yes/no
The lead partner(s) for the section
The responsible member of the marketing team
A space to include progress notes and other comments

Identify your firms’ areas for submission

Before you dive in, firm up a definitive list of sections for which you will submit.

In most cases, you will re-submit for those areas where your firm was previously ranked, and those areas where you submitted previously.

But you may wish to submit in new sections as well.

Did you make key lateral hires, open a new office, or expand a particular practice? Are there practices that have been earmarked for expansion?

For any “possibles” (i.e. – sections where you think you may want to submit, but aren’t sure), discuss internally and talk to a senior partner or section head ahead of time and get a firm yes/no.

You want to avoid the partner calling in November – at the end of the season – wondering why we didn’t do a submission for his practice back in July.

New timetable released April 2016

The Chambers USA 2017 schedule – this covers submission preparation in 2016 – will be released online in April 2016.

The new schedule will tell you which sections are being researched this year, when the submission is due, and which researcher is assigned to each section.

Keep an eye open for schedule changes

To make life easier for law firms, Chambers likes to stay faithful to the equivalent deadline last year.

So, if your section was due in August 2015, there’s a good chance it will be the same this year.

But there are exceptions and changes, so it’s important to check the new running order carefully.

New sections

Watch for brand new sections; every year Chambers adds in a few new ones.

Chambers will notify you about these at the time it announces the new schedule.

If you are on the Chambers database, you may receive an e-mail notification, but this doesn’t always happen, so proactively check the online schedule in mid-April.

Watch for “early bird” deadlines

The first set of submission deadlines will likely be early June 2016, with the remaining deadlines following at the start of each month through November 2016.

You will need to get started in mid-late April to hit the first set of deadlines in June.

Don’t fall behind on your June deadlines, as you’ll be playing catch up through the Summer.

Understand the calendar

The research itself usually begins later in the month of the deadline, or the following month.

On the Chambers schedule you will see a column showing “month of research” – often the month following the submission deadline.

Roughly the research runs from July to December 2016.

Depending on your firm and where its offices are located, you may be busier at the start of the cycle or the end.

New edition of Chambers USA

The new edition of Chambers USA will be released on May 27 2016.

As well as preparing an internal analysis of the results, the new material helps you plan ahead for the next season.

Your firm may have secured new lawyer and firm rankings, and that will influence your approach to the next round of submissions.

You might need to make some last minute changes to your June 2016 deadline entries after the new guide is released – for example, which lawyers to include, and what to write in the feedback section.

Chambers template

Remember to download the latest version of the standard submission template from the Chambers site.

Chambers makes changes to the form from time to time, so the latest version should replace earlier versions you may have saved locally in previous years.

Make sure you’re down as a Chambers contact

Legal marketers switch firms regularly and directories responsibility is passed from person to person, so make sure you are listed on Chambers’ system as the external contact for your firm.

Speak to the Chambers database staff, and tell them that you are the point person for your firm.

Then you will receive notifications from the directories about schedule changes, launch dates, deadlines, and other updates.

You may also want to contact the relevant researchers (any that have been assigned at this point) at the start of the research process, and tell them that you are the firm’s directory liaison.

Assign directories responsibility

Most law firm marketing staff have “day jobs”, and it’s difficult for them to juggle the competing demands on their time in the middle of directory season.

So it’s vital that responsibility for each submission is assigned to a team member, who has to ensure that the submission s finalized on time.

Map out clear instructions to your team and make sure each submission has an “owner”.

It’s best to have a single marketing person as the main owner of each submission, even if that submission cuts across internal practice groups.

Assign an approving partner to each submission

One of the reasons submissions take longer than they should, and deadlines get missed, is because marketers expand the circle of partners involved.

Naturally, there is a desire to “cover” yourself and the culture of consensus in law firms encourages such an approach.

But you have to keep the circle tight, or the submission will drag on.

Assign a single partner to each submission – at most, two – with final sign-off responsibility.

Death by committee

Law firms love committees but they can derail submissions and lead to delays.

It may not be inclusive, but it’s usually more effective if a marketer works with a small group of key partners in a given practice to drive the submission forward and secure timely approval.

Staff up

Chambers USA follows an annual cycle, with a big spike of activity during the main submission season.

The seven-month period from May through November represents a considerable burden for law firms – particularly law firm marketing departments.

To cope with the increased workload during the peak months, you need to do some of the following: assign existing members of the in-house marketing team to directories duty, bring in temporary staff, nominate a dedicated directories coordinator, or hire a directories consultant or agency to help with some of the work.

Most firms, particularly larger ones, employ a combination of these approaches.

Weed-addled clients seeking legal representation now have a new resource.

The Cannabis Law Report describes itself as the first service to document and manage legal information about cannabis issues worldwide.

Alongside a raft of information, such as legislative updates, case law, and commissioned articles, law firms with expertise in the emerging area of cannabis law can advertise their services via the site’s directory.

Published by Hong Kong-based Way Cool Media, the Cannabis Law Report offers pages “designed specifically for cannabis law professionals to market their services and skills nationally and internationally”.

A directory listing costs a bargain $67, an amount that will barely buy you some skunk and Rizlas from the lads down Wythenshawe precinct.

Among the 22 firms already listed as “top rated” in the directory is Davis Wright Tremaine, which has a strong presence in west coast hash meccas, Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco.

Taking place at the Hilton New York Midtown hotel on May 4-5 2016, the directories-themed session is called “How Legal Purchasing is Impacted by Your Approach to Surveys, Rankings, & Directories”.

Per the event literature:

Time consuming. An ego boost for the partners. A win for the marketing department. How do you view rankings, surveys, directories, and other Best of Lists? Whether your response falls into “love them!,” “necessary evil” or “ew” (or a little of each) join this roundtable to discuss:

How, if at all, awards impact legal purchasing decisions
Where your peers have found them helpful to business development goals
What questions to ask yourself when faced with a pile of surveys on one hand and a growing list of Other Projects on the other.”

Lauren Hughes joined Ropes & Gray from Legal 500 in 2015, where she was US editor, while Catherine McGregor worked at Chambers & Partners and Lawdragon prior to her current role as editor-in-chief, GC Magazine, and publishing director for Legal 500 (in-house).
Pictured: water tower, Madison Square Park, New York – taken by Lloyd Pearson, March 2016

A couple of years ago I wrote about an interesting new legal technology product called Firm Directory, a fancy internal directory for law firms.

Usually when we think about legal directories, we think of publicly accessible products aimed at buyers of legal services, but directories come in many forms, and the concept of a sophisticated internal directory struck me as a good idea.

With the mega mergers of recent years, and more likely on the way, some law firms now have thousands of lawyers,

In such massive organizations, lawyers often know little about their fellow partners and colleagues in other offices, so arguably a good internal directory and collaboration tool, is just as important as a product that enables outsiders to find them.

And an obvious advantage of an internal product is that lawyers may wish to share information, which wouldn’t necessarily be suitable for an external audience.

Essentially the Firm Directory was based around people – the lawyers in the firm – whereas the Research Directory expands on that platform to allow firms to profile anything that is important such as clients, matters and alumni.

Jason Noble, Neudesic’s vice president of solutions, said:

We’re combining robust profiles with a firm’s existing data to create a customized directory that serves as a single source of searchable knowledge.”

And, as you might expect from a technology business, customization is very much at the forefront of the design: Research Directory enables law firms to search and share knowledge with custom directories that can be easily configured and integrated with systems like SharePoint.

Legal marketers should make a note of the date, as it’s the deadline to return entries for this year’s FT Innovative Lawyers Report.

Research partner, RSG Consulting, is once again charged with coordinating the research into finding Europe’s most forward-thinking law firms.

However, there has been some change this year.

Per RSG:

This year we are changing the submissions process to remove the constraint of strict categories from the outset thereby allowing submitters more freedom to choose initiatives from any practice area or part of the business.

Law firms are invited to submit a maximum of ten submissions to two broad sections: legal expertise and the business of law. We have deliberately left the categories broad, as we want to hear where you think your law firm has been most innovative. In addition, firms can submit or nominate innovative individuals.”

Winners will be honored at a bash in London on October 5 2016.

Click here for full details on how to submit, and all the entry forms are here.